From the Hugo and Nebula Winning Author

Some call it the Dreamwish Beast. Others call it the
Starduster. Some don't believe it exists at all. Others worship
it. A handful will pay any price to kill it and display its
remains.

But it remains for one man, Nicobar Lane, the most
accomplished hunter of the galactic era, to find out what it
really is, to match wits and will power and skills against
something that is both too alien and too familiar.

Now that he knows the Dreamwish Beast exists, Lane becomes obsessed with killing it, much as Ahab was obsessed with killing the white whale...but the whale was an unthinking beast, while this one can establish contact with Lane long enough to ask what it has done to make Lane want to kill it. Join this Ahab as he reluctantly pursues the secrets buried inside him. Join this interstellar Moby Dick as he tempts and tortures his pursuer.